Coupon or gift cards are well known as providing to a holder the right to redeem a dollar value represented by the gift card with one or more specified retail merchants or for providing credit for purchases as a credit card with a limit equal to a purchased value. As a gift, gift cards which are retailer-specific reflect an emotionally substantial effort of a giver to appreciate the preferences of a recipient. In contrast, delivery of a gift of cash or check may be thought, under the circumstances of a rather personal relationship, to indicate lack of care or personal consideration in choosing a gift. The overwhelming popularity of gift cards as gifts confirms their effectiveness in emotional giving terms.
Gift cards have become so ubiquitous and desirable that they are presently available outside of channels owned or controlled by the retail business entity who offers them. As an example, coin counting machines offer users an option of obtaining a cash amount (less a very substantial service fee) or to obtain a gift card from one of multiple retail entities offering instant delivery of a gift card in the exact amount of the coins counted. Further, retail locations which themselves do not regularly offer gift cards for their own businesses (such as drug stores or grocery stores) currently may provide a space at a front of the store location for a display of multiple gift cards from several different business entities, each offering more than one gift card reflecting multiple dollar denominations to induce a purchaser into purchasing at least one gift card.
The costs of distribution, careful accounting, and redemption of gift cards outside of commercial channels owned or controlled by the business entities offering such gift cards have been shown to be rather small compared with the benefits, in that redemption percentages tend to be rather low. Failure of a bearer to redeem their gift card results in a clear profit for the issuer in the amount received from its sale. Even so, profit actually received by an issuer of a gift card is typically less than the face value or purchase value for that gift card. The issuer has a cost of production and distribution of a secure form of a gift card. The final point of sale of the gift card can be through a retail merchant who is otherwise not associated with the issuer, where such a retail merchant will receive a portion of the face value or purchase price of the gift card in order to induce the retail merchant to promote and sell such gift cards.
Gift cards are presently made in the form factor of a standard credit or debit card and bear a magnetic strip upon which to record relevant activation and redemption information upon purchase of the gift card. A front surface of each gift card prominently displays the trade name or trademark of the business entity offering the gift card, which mark presentation is intended to promote and advertise the products of the distributing business entity. It is critical to the distributing business entity that the mark presentation be viewed as many times as possible under circumstances that require a viewer to focus on such a mark presentation. Where multiple gift cards are offered in a vertical or inclined display, the gift cards are supported in a holder or tray so that the front surfaces of the gift cards are easily visible to a potential purchaser.
The retail business location where multiple gift cards are displayed and offered for sale are highly motivated to induce their purchase. The offering locations do not incur any direct costs for the gift cards in that a general distributor provides both the display as well as the cards and maintains inventory of gift cards and their overall appearance.
The retail business locations where multiple gift cards are displayed and offered for sale have the capacity with minimal investment of time to add other items for sale in their retail business. Where these offering locations are retail stores such as drug stores or grocery stores, cooperative selling of products is well-known. For instance, a drug store will present for sale bandages next to antibiotic ointments. A grocery store will place on adjacent store shelves the packages of pasta with pasta sauces.
It is now a well known concept to present an easily visible display of gift cards of multiple, different and typically non-competing business entities, whose variety is critical to attracting the buyer as to a favored offering business entity, whereafter a buyer may find other entity's gift cards that are desired. The presence of gift cards of so many offering entities in a single display is a further example of cooperative selling.
There is a need in furthering the concept of cooperative selling in the presentation of gift cards of multiple offering entities to attract a potential buyer of gift cards to such a display and provide additional inducement to purchase such cards.